Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
There has been a veritable buzzing in the blogosphere, at least that part of it which covers all things Apple, as news emerges regarding the possibility of an Apple operated 'kill switch' for iPhone applications.
PC World said
that if Apple "doesn't like an app it flips a 'kill switch' that zaps
an unpalatable iTunes App off your iPhone in a heart beat."
This following on from the discovery by an
independent iPhone developer who found an interesting line of code within the iPhone
2.0 software relating to the Core Location API.
Of course, Apple has always ensured it has a firm grip on the
applications that can appear on your iPhone. Well, it would have if it
were not for the various Jailbreak and Pwning tools that allow users to
install whatever apps they want. Apple, on the other hand, will only
allow those applications which it has authorised to be made available
on the official Apple iTunes App Store.
It's a real problem for Apple, it can remove applications from the App
Store if it decides it does not like them or they end up breaking the
rules somehow. Indeed, this last week or so has seen the likes of
NetShare and the I Am Rich app both vanish without trace.
The kill switch ideas is in a different league, it has been suggested.
The thinking being that it enables Apple to remotely unauthorise
applications that you have already downloaded and installed to your
iPhone.
The developer who found it admits he knows very little about what it is
or what it does, whether it is even active in fact. Apple, meanwhile,
remains silent.
However, CNet has now reported
that the iPhone blacklist is less of a fully blown blacklist and more a
mechanism to keep rogue applications away from the Core Location API.
Quoting an anonymous but informed source within Apple, the report says
that the company has "laid out strict policies for accessing the Core
Location API over privacy concerns" which essentially means that it
does not want some sloppily coded application handing out the user
location willy nilly.
Which all sounds totally plausible, if not quite so exciting as a kill
switch. Let's wait and see if Apple make an official statement over the
weekend and put this rumour to rest once and for all, one way or the
other...
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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